i'd be interested to see your training log while you did this. i think the WS4SB is for athletes, so it is 1x5 effort instead of the true west side set up because joe defranco doesn't want to fatigue his athletes or get them injured in true max efforts. i know this isn't enough for technique, but the intensity is a lot higher i think.

regarding your exercise selection i feel like the last 6 you list are power exercises that wouldn't help you on the squat. it depends what type of lunges and split squat you did but depending on how you load that stuff it may not be enough to make you stronger. the box squat seems so similar to the squat to me that it doesn't seem like an assistance exercise to me. maybe i am wrong?

eta: in other words, a lot of the exercises you lift i wouldn't consider good assistance exercises for the squat. i think they are fine primary exercises for a separate goal of developing power. i dunno, maybe people will show i am wrong?

What would you consider a good squat assistance then? Fwiw it is basically impossible in a low bar squat for your weakness to be anything but the posterior chain, so my squat assistance was always 1 pc exercise and then 1 unilateral exercise. After that I'd move on to core with some direct ab work and some lower back work.

i bet you could improve your squat doing a workout without a squat like

max effort goodmorning

4x8 barbell bulgarian split squat
4x8 pistols

3x6 natural glute ham raise
walking DB lunge

farmers walks
weighted plank

heh, this sounds like a pretty hard work out to me. how can i find your WS4SB log on here? i want to see you do west side barbell!

ETA: i am gonna PM greenbast to see if he will post his thoughts on this. FWIW his workouts look a lot more like what you like to do than what a west side program looks like, as far as i can see anyway

You seem to be missing a critical element. While that program may make you stronger in the squat muscles (I agree that it probably would) you need to be squatting regularly to be able to express that strength efficiently in a squat. If you do all that accessory work then you cannot adequately recover and allow yourself the 20 to 50 squat reps above 85% of your max per week that I believe is required to squat heavily correctly.

This goes back to what I said initially. Once you have the squat thoroughly ingrained and you only need ~10 heavy reps per week to maintain form then accessory work is very beneficial. But when you need more reps than that to maintain near optimal form, you don't have room for enough assistance to make you significantly stronger.

Yeah, maybe you're right. I was thinking of myself and I think my squat would go up but like you were saying I am lifting such lower weights that my technique wouldn't matter as much. Still though, WSS people say their program is for everyone including intermediates. I don't think it can be healthy for you long term to be squatting 20+ reps per week at 85% and higher that stuff is gonna ruin your hips. Id like to see KPC comment on this but he would rarely be drawn into such a content heavy discussion, unfortunately.

sayid,

what part of the hips do you believe would be ruined? And why?

I don't know if this will matter to you or not, but WS4SB is pretty far off from actual westside. I've trained a bit with a guy who helps run some of Westside's seminars with Louie, and he and other westiside guys have said repeatedly that WS4SB is both very unlike westside and not that awesome (in their fairly colored view).

I don't have the anywhere close to the strength numbers to call myself an expert on the topic, but I've been exposed to enough of it by a great trainer to probably answer a couple of easy questions. First thing - outside of GMs (which are 3RM due to spotting issues), max effort days are almost always 1RMs (I never did anything but a 1RM in the 6 weeks I was doing ME work with them).

/hijack

Nice squats sir.

Soulman, I dunno what part of the hips, but I think doing the same activity at high volume and intensity will lead to breakdown over time.

JakeDuke, do you think an intermediate who can squat more than twice his body weight for reps with decent form could do WSB and increase their squat significantly? Or do you think as Doug Funnie says it is important to get in high numbers of high effort reps with the squat to keep up with the skill/technical aspect of squatting?

Im gonna start a smolov JR bench cycle in september and Im atm doing 3x5 everyother workout and 3x1 or 3x2 the other half of the workouts. Do I need to do some kind of warm up before starting the cycle or is it just to suck it up and be sore for a while?

Did you skip the "switching phase"? And did you do the introductory microcycle?

You still didn't answer why. Hopefully you have a basis for saying that besides your own thoughts on the matter. Also depends on what you mean by high volume/intensity of course.

Yeah definitely. The biggest hurdle is having access to

1) resources to help you learn things like box squats and squatting with bands (internet and people who have done WSB can do this)
2) The equipment (e.g. boxes, bands, platforms for banded DL pulls, etc).

1 is very important, 2 can be somewhat worked around if you're creative although bands are an absolute necessity.

My squat form actually got better doing WSB stuff since my glute and hamstring strength/awareness improved a great deal. Keep in mind that they occasionally do oly stance squatting as assistance work and banded box squats is one of the main DE exercises, so even if they max stuff is only singles you'll still get plenty of squat work in. Also, for DE work you're supposed to move the submaximal weight as if it was a max effort lift - this is fairly taxing.

Ty. I'm fairly happy with how I'm progressing, and I'm not really sure why it's doesn't seem good enough for bruiser

I would think it would lead to getting stronger over time. Actually the soft tissue quality in my hips and quads seemed better in the third week of Smolov than any time I can remember. I felt absolutely great.

I don't think you'll be too sore. It sounds like you're benching 2-3 times a week already? The intensity is pretty low for the first week. Just be a tiny bit conservative and don't use your true 1rm too calculate the work sets.

Yes and yes. In hindsight the switching phase and intensity phases may be worth it next time. I skipped them because most of the stories I read online had people making 60%+ of their gains after just doing the base cycle, so I figured that would probably be a good place to start. I was already squatting a fair amount going into it and I was pretty sure the high volume work wasn't going to cripple me with soreness.

I did say why; high volume and high intensity over time will break something down. I didn't say how because I am not familiar with how this happens. I can provide supporting evidence on this if that is what you want. Look at professional athletes in every event. As they spend more time in the sport they gradually have more and more injuries which they are managing which slow them down. This is due more to time spent training I believe than age. I think Gorilla said this verbatim. It is NOT as if years of playing American football will leave an athlete more prepared than ever to play American football... to reach that state is a very tricky line of preparation.

You had great gains the last month but Smolov is not sustainable. I think two times a year will lead to problems within a few years with 90% certainty, and doing it more than twice a year would be madness. If you disagree I suppose you can go ahead and prove me wrong and get massive squat numbers if you are correct.

So, if you cannot do Smolov all the time what can you do to improve your lifts? Well, you said you were stagnating before for a fairly long time. So IMO do WSB and be a badass!!